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BY 



JOHN C. BRANNER, PH. D, 



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JOHN C, BRANNER, Ph. D. 

V«GE-PRE8iDENT 
LELANO STAMFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY 



Stanford University 
Press 






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Author 
(Person) 

2SJn05 



PREFACE 

A desire to share our good things with our 
friends and to preserve for coming classes some 
clear cut, wholesome advice, has culminated in 
issuing the following address, ivhich was given 
by Dr. Branner at the Marker- Hughes' School 
to the class of 1905. 

CATHERINE HARKER, 
ELIZABETH G. HUGHES. 

Palo Alto, California. 



From School to Co!!eg:e 

II 

When I asked a young lady who nsed to at- 
tend this school what I should say to you to-day, 
I received this reply : "Don't gi\^e them advice, 
and don't talk long." Talk long I shall not ; 
but how can you expect a college professor, and 
especially one of my age. to let slip such an op- 
portunity to unburden his mind of some (f its 
accumulations? You must not ask it ; it would 
be flying in the face of nature. Tliis is indeed 
the period of addresses by college profei:?ors. 
We cannot be expected to say anything new, 
for this sort of thing has been going on for a 
long, long time. But, though you n!n:st get 
dreadfully tired of being preached at, this is the 
last chance the preparatory school will have at 
you, and very likely you will not hear anything 
more of the kind until )^ou come up to the v.n\- 

I 



versity, where I may have an opportunity to give 
you this same advice all over again. 

When you get through with your university 
work much kind and useful counsel will be given 
you about life in the big world beyond, but I 
shall have done you a greater service if I can 
persuade you to properly appreciate and use 
your time and opportunities while you are in col- 
lege. 

I am not used to giving advice to young ladies, 
though ; I never felt that they needed it, and I 
am still convinced that they do not need it 
nearly as much as do the young men. But after 
all, about the only thing the old people have that 
is worth having is the knowledge gained from 
their own experience and from the experience of 
others. This knowledge is the concentration, as 
it were, of all we know — the savings of a life- 
time. And these savings can be passed on to you 
only as counsel in one shape or another. In 
what I say I shall bear in mind this observation 
made by Jean Jacques Rousseau * a long time 

* Confessions, p. 509. 
2 



ago : that ''the duty of the most pure friendship 
does not always consist in being agree- 
able, but in advising for the best." 

Hitherto parents and guardians have kept an 
eye on you to see that you walked uprightly and 
behaved yourselves becomingly. Now the apron 
strings are to be broken, or very tightly stretched. 
You go to the university to measure yourselves 
with men and women from all parts of the coun- 
try, and to meet temptations from which you 
have hitherto been shielded. 

Advice is apt to vary, too, according to the 
person who gives it. If you have had any time 
for reading in the midst of your Latin and Greek 
and French and German and English and mathe- 
matics and history and physiology and botany 
and zoology and music and a few other studies, 
you have probably read the Letters of a Self-made 
Merchant to His Son. You will remember that in 
the first letter the father writes to his son who 
has just gone away to college, he says : *' Dear 
Pierrepont : Your Ma got safe back this morn- 
ing and she wants me to be sure to tell you not 

3 



to ov^rstudy, and I want to tell you to be sure 
not to understudy." It is to be hoped that 
Pierrepont took the advice of both his parents. 
Some students are disposed to study too much, 
to the great detriment of health of body and 
mind ; while others are disposed to study too 
Httle, also to the detriment of body and mind 
and morals. 

It is the universal testimony of the professors 
in all co-educational institutions that the women 
are more conscientious in their work than the 
men, and that they are therefore much more lia- 
ble to overv/ork. The first piece of advice I have 
to offer you, therefore, is that you do not over- 
work. Nothing is to be gained by that sort of 
thing. I suppose you will, like so many young 
people, feel that you must get through with your 
studies, and get out in the busy world. But if 
you get through with nerves shattered, and health 
gone beyond remedy, you will have paid more 
than it is worth for your education. 

The second bit of advice is like unto the first, 
and that is to take good care of your health. You 

4 



can pay too dearly for education quite as cer- 
tainly as you can pay too dearly for a piece of 
cloth. 

And pray do not proceed on the theory that 
your health is a matter that concerns you alone. 
It not only concerns your relatives and friends 
through their affections for you, but soon or late, 
unless you take proper care of your health, you 
will become a burden to them instead of a help. 

I have said that I find young men more in need 
of advice than young women, but in matters of 
this kind I believe the women are more reckless 
than the men. In our quadrangle is a place 
where, when the weather is not bad, a good 
many people take a short cut across the corners 
on the bare ground. On several occasions when 
it was not raining, but when the ground was 
muddy, I have seen the students passing this 
place in groups, and I have been impressed by 
the fact that most of the young men, with the 
soles of their shoes fully a quarter of an inch 
thick, walk the slightly longer distance under the 
arcades, while the young ladies, with dragging 

5 



skirts, without overshoes, and with shoe soles as 
thin as cardboard, walk across the short cut 
through the mud. 

Bearing directly on this matter of health I 
would urge that you impose a rational limit upon 
your social pleasures. There is no sadder sight 
than that of young women driving away youth 
and health of mind and heart by late hours, and 
by keeping constantly on the nervous stretch and 
strain in the process known as ' ' having a good 
time." We cannot too severely condemn the 
course of young men who lead dissipated lives ; 
but dissipation does not consist solely in exces- 
sive drinking and smoking. There are excesses 
of other kinds often indulged in by young women 
that are quite as sure to dull the moral senses, to 
dim the sparkle of their eyes, and to make of them 
faded old women at twenty-five. 

Do not, I pray you, get the impression that 
the college professor has no sympathy with the 
pleasures of the young. As one grows old, if his 
heart is somewhere near the right spot, he sym- 
pathizes the more with all the legitimate enjoy- 

6 



ments of young people. By no means would I 
have you do without various kinds of play, but 
see that play does not get the first place in your 
lives. Late hours at the ball, the reception, the 
** spread," the chafing-dish party, or other social 
function, will cause the roses of youth and health 
to fade from your cheeks just as promptly as late 
hours of study or care or sickness ; and once gone 
they return no more. 

On the other hand, do not confine your atten- 
tion too exclusively to your regular university 
work, but mingle with your fellow students and 
take some part in student activities. Your inter- 
ests in such affairs are really quite as great as 
those of the men. Do not hold yourself aloof 
from your classmates, and do not, above all, as- 
sume an air of being superior to matters that are 
of interest or concern to yourselves, to the stu- 
dent body, and to the college community. Cul- 
tivate respect for things that should be respected, 
and appreciation for the many things that are 
done for your comfort and welfare, and do not 
go fault-finding through this joyous period of 

7 



your lives. President Andrew D. White of Cor- 
nell University properly expresses it in his auto- 
biography, written toward the close of a life-long 
experience as student, professor, and college pres- 
ident, when he says that "the most detestable 
product of college life is the sickly cynic. ' ' * 

The cynic would have us think that he could 
win all the prizes, take all the honors, and throw 
all creation quite in the shade if he only chose to 
do so. But he never does any of these things, 
and he has the air of thinking none of them worth 
the doing. Should any one of you ever be 
tempted to take this detestable attitude, or to 
admire it in others, please remember this at least : 
that one is useful in this world not according to 
what he is able to do, but according to what he 
does. 

In your relations to university regulations, try 
to live up to the spirit of them. If you find a rule 
requiring you to end a social function at twelve 
o'clock, be sure that you don't wait for the clock 
to finish striking twelve before ending it. Bear 

* Autobiography, I, p. 33. 
8 



in mind that when people abuse their privileges 
they are on the high road to lose them altogether. 

The good 3^ou will get out of your college life 
will come day by day and Httle by little. Integ- 
rity, uprightness, truthfulness, unselfishness, gen- 
tleness, and a fine sense of honor cannot be put 
upon you Hke a garment ; these things must grow 
up within you if they are to be controlling factors 
in your lives. 

Have confidence in your teachers. Turn a deaf 
ear to carping criticism of them. Remember that 
the most disagreeable people in this world are 
those who never have a kind word for their fellow 
men. You are probably not prepared to realize 
how good an impression a student makes upon 
his elders by expressing confidence in his instruc- 
tors. And if you are to get much out of your 
work as you go along you must have confidence 
in them. I do not mean to beg the question, 
however. Professors are hum.an beings just like 
the rest of the world, and are liable to all the 
weaknesses of our race ; but the men under w^hom 
you must continue your work have been looked 

9 



over by much more critical persons than you 
would claim to be. 

Mr. Muirhead, the author of the British and 
American "Baedekers," and a man of wide ob- 
servation, makes this statement in his * * America, 
the Land of Contrasts " :^ * ' Among the most 
searching tests of the state of civilization reached 
by any country are the character of its roads, its 
minimizing of noise, and the position of its 
women. ' ' We have to confess that our roads 
are pretty bad, and we are a noisy lot, but our 
women, we are proud to say, have a position al- 
together different from and better than that of 
women in other parts of the world with which I 
have any acquaintance. 

Having in mind the condition of so many 
women in European countries, Mr. Muirhead re- 
marks the absence in America of ' ' the pathetic 
army of ineffective spinsters clinging apologetic- 
ally to the skirts of gentility." But that Ameri- 
can women have a position better than the women 
of other countries depends upon the men and 

*P. 59. 
10 



upon the women themselves. Our women have 
a large variety of interests, and they seem to have 
followed natural laws in the development of their 
individuality. I believe that the freedom per- 
mitted in matters of education is partly responsi- 
ble for the independence and individuality of the 
women of this country. Every honorable pro- 
fession and business is to-day open to them. At 
your doors is one of the largest benefactions ever 
bestowed upon mankind, and it is chiefly the 
work of an American woman. 

Like so many other women of our time, some 
of you may be looking for positions of one kind 
or another shortly after you get through your 
university v/ork. You will be more successful in 
this search if you will keep certain m.atters in 
view before and after you go to college. One of 
the main things is for you to devote yourselves 
to getting a proper and thorough education. If 
you will do this you are much more likely to get 
places and to hold them with satisfaction both to 
yourselves and to your employers. You have 
much the same interest then that men have in 



choosing your studies and in deciding what you 
will do. When you come to choose a major study 
in the university, endeavor to follow the natural 
bent of your mind very much as any one else 
should do. Geology is about as far from our old- 
time ideas of what a v>'oman can do as anything 
can well be. But the professor of geology at 
Bryn Mawr is a woman, and she is not only a 
good geologist, but her standing is recognized by 
the most exclusive geological organization in this 
country. I believe it is true of every one that 
he can do m^ost successfully what his tastes natu- 
rall}^ lead him to do, for it is only when one works 
at what he likes that he works best. And this is 
just as true of a woman as it is of a man. 

We do not hear as much nowadays as we used 
to of the accomplishments of women, but we 
really do think a good deal about them. For an 
accomplishment is merely excellence in some- 
thing, and the power to do it well. Every one 
admires a person who really knows or can do 
things well, and this applies to the accomplish- 
ments of women as well as to those of men. It is 

12 



only necessary to see that the accomplishment is 
genuine and a part of you, for only by this pro- 
cess can you hope to make of yourselves good 
company. 

There is one accomplishment that I would 
especially commend to you as becoming in an 
American woman, and that is the English lan- 
guage. Good English is a vast deal more im- 
portant to every one of you than French or Ger- 
man or any other language, unless indeed you 
are to live in France or Germany. In this con- 
nection I implore you, in the name of all you hold 
sacred, to make as little use as you possibly can 
of slang. If you have had the misfortune to grow 
up in an atm.osphere of slang, you have not the 
remotest idea of hovv^ it sounds from the mouth 
of a lady. I have been in parts of the world 
where women smoke, and chew tobacco, and 
swear, but I assure you without the slightest ex- 
aggeration that none of those habits are more 
offensive than is the use of slang by young wom.en. 
And aside from the looks or sound of it, the ha- 
bitual use of slang so demoralizes one's language 

13 



that the user of it sooner or later loses the ability 
to speak straightibrward and effective English. 

I make bold to venture even on the grounds of 
your relations to the men in the university, and 
for that matter, outside of it, too. Women have 
to do in this world not alone with their own con- 
duct, fate and fortunes, but with the conduct, fate 
and fortunes of men. You sometimes see it stated 
that a woman can drag a man down to hell. Yes, 
I dare say that bad women can ; but good women 
can drag men into heaven, too. Men will accept 
you at som.ething near your ovv^n valuation, and 
your influence will therefore be determined largely 
by your self-respect. 

Encourage in every way, and at all times, 
formal politeness and courtesy of men toward 
women. If you will let a man open a door for 
you he will think better of 3^ou, and you will 
think better of him. If you give him no oppor- 
tunity to do such trivial things you appear to go 
on the assumption that he is a boor, and that 
is not good, either for you or for him. Encour- 
age men to be considerate of women in all things, 

14 




to be chivalrous in all things. Chivalry is no 
mediaeval custom to be discredited and discarded 
by the practical, sensible, educated women of the 
twentieth century : chivalry has its roots in some 
of the best traits of human nature — the protec- 
tion and honor due women from men. No man 
and no woman has anything to lose by it ; both 
have much to gain and profit by it. Encourage 
in all men v/hat you would have in the men who 
are nearest and dearest to you. If you will be- 
lieve them honorable, truthful, and considerate, 
they v/ill at least try to be honorable, truthful, and 
considerate. 

It is quite impossible to tell you all the things 
you should and should not do, but in addition to 
the matters already spoken of, I would have you 
resolve : 

That you will cultivate the graces that belong 
to v/omen rather than those that belong to men. 

That you will not try to do more than you can 
do well. 

That you will keep in close touch with your 
major professor. 

15 



That you will not miss the first recitations or 
lectures in any of your studies. 

That you will give due (and not undue) atten- 
tion to your dress and personal appearance. 

That you will use the dictionary and atlas with 
the greatest freedom. 

That you will write legibly and speak distinctly. 

That when you get to be sophomores you will 
not tease the freshmen. 

The things I have been speaking of lie mostly 
near the surface. In the short time at my dis- 
posal I cannot say much of those deeper and more 
important matters of character and basal princi- 
ples, but these I have no doubt have been so im- 
pressed upon you that further mention just now 
is unnecessary. I am not forgetting, and I would 
not have you forget, that ' * moral development, 
spiritual discipline, is the most essential part ol 
education. " ^^ As the foundations of our great 
buildings lie buried deep out of our sight, so be- 
neath every truly great character lie foundation 
principles built with infinite toil and pains. Recol- 

* Stead, p. 175. 

16 



lect, though, that this is a convenient point in your 
lives to make good resolutions, and to set out 
bravely to keep them. Your moral natures have 
to be looked after quite as certainly as your knowl- 
edge of science, literature and art. And while no 
amount of piety will give an uninstructed man 
an insight into the truths of science, neither can 
any amount of scientific knowledge make a man 
upright. 

As I came down from the city a few days ago 
I noticed again what has so often impressed me 
— the oak trees near San Carlos all leaning up 
the valley toward the southeast. And I said to 
myself c '' How much better than any formal ad- 
dress it would be if those young women could 
read aright the history of these trees." You 
have seen them, have you not, how they all lean 
in the same direction? And why? I have 
heard it suggested that they have been bent 
over by the violent storm winds of winter. 
But such is not the case, for the hard winter 
winds blow in just the opposite direction. The 
fact is that during the spring and early summer, 

17 



when the young shoots are growing, gentle winds 
blow pretty constantly up the valley toward 
the southeast, and these gentle winds keep the 
young twigs bent in that direction until they ma- 
ture and grow rigid. It is not then the violence 
of the wind and storm that determines their lean- 
ing, but the gentler breezes that blow during their 
period of growth and development. So it must 
be with you : the gentle winds that blow in your 
youth during your years of mental and spiritual 
development will determine which way you must 
lean all through life, and which way you will fall 
in death. 



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